


Rook

by Zooheaded



Category: True Detective
Genre: 1994, Gen, One of the body, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:45:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4472822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zooheaded/pseuds/Zooheaded
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 1994 on October the 10th, 11:34 on a Monday morning, and Rust is shaking hands with Martin Eric Hart in the stale, fluorescent lit office of Major Ken Quesada in the Lafayette, Louisiana Criminal Investigations Division building.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rook

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackeyedblonde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/gifts).



> For Hannah. This took way longer than it should have and probably ain’t all that great but hopefully it helps to smooth out a few of those rough edges that have been snagging lately. :>

 

The year is 1994 on October the 10th, 11:34 on a Monday morning, and Rust is shaking hands with Martin Eric Hart in the stale, fluorescent lit office of Major Ken Quesada in the Lafayette, Louisiana Criminal Investigations Division building.

Sitting on the west end of East University Avenue, the CID building itself hasn’t been updated since it was built in 1965, and all Rust can taste is the glue and stale coffee of the decade typical wood paneling that covers every spare inch of the small walled room. He’s been sitting here for over forty minutes while Quesada rambles on about the man who is supposed to be his new partner, and the only person in the entire place who has looked at him with anything other then disinterest or a thin veil of contempt, had been the smiling woman from the front desk who had delivered a mug of coffee to him. Cathleen. He remembers the citrus taste of her coral pink nails. Rust feels the cup he balances on the ledger in his lap growing cold in his hands, warmth fading away like he’s made some kind of mistake, but it gives his hands something to hold on to so that he doesn’t fidget too much.

The first month after he moved from Texas to Louisiana, he spent long hours studying maps of the surrounding area, making careful notations of the different neighborhoods that made up the city of Lafayette. Projects. Ghettos. Places prosts might frequent. Places he could get downers. The local Piggly Wiggly. The two months following were burned out nose deep in the pages of murder manuals and sex crime books. Rust was a fast reader, a fast learner too, and by the time he’d clawed his way through every ink printed word of grim description and sprawling graphic photos, he’d filled two ledgers down to the last page with illustrations and notes of interest. It wasn’t until about a week before he was supposed to make an appearance at the CID that he realized he was supposed to buy a couple of suits and ties. Get a haircut. Make himself look presentable.

Claire had taken just about everything after the divorce, he’d let her take whatever she wanted, but Rust did get some money out of the deal, had almost withdrawn it all at once and burned it, but decided against it last minute. He’d received some reparations from working under the HIDTA as well. Enough to get an apartment and keep himself afloat until his Detective checks started rolling in. He’d taken three ‘ludes last night and slept the normal, doctor recommended eight hours. Drugged or not, he didn’t want to show up on his first day looking tired.

Not that it would have changed any opinions.

Rust knew that he wasn’t wanted here, and that feeling had been enforced with every glance and side eye from every person he’s come across so far today. Felt it being _re_ inforced with the disinterested way that Quesada spoke to him, like he might be something temporary, but he was here for the long haul to do the Job, and the Job was all that mattered. If he glances behind him through the blinds, he’ll see a handful of eyes dart away, but if he let his eyes go out of focus into softness, he’d also see a wash of blues, grays, browns, and whites. Pleasing colors. Tolerable colors. Colors that tasted of coffee, and ink, and warmth, and nothing.

_An existential reset. He could do this._

The air tasted like that white paper color and he breathed it in through his mouth greedily, almost as good as the smoke from a lit camel blue. He thinks of the pack currently burning a hole in his shirt pocket and wonders if he can make it through this little interview without lighting up a smoke right here in the Major’s office. Now, he’s only been out of North Shore going on four months now, but even he knew that doing that probably wouldn’t make the best first impression. Instead he stares just above and to the right of Quesada’s eyes, losing himself in the calm of the quiet office noises. The door, partly ajar, lets in the slightest undertones of ambiance to accompany the voice of the man speaking to him: that pencil scritch sound that smells like towering white pines, that warm beer scent of staplers snapping shut over and over. The cheap detergent Goodwill smell that soaked every inch of his new clothes wafted up to him every few moments. He hadn’t been able to go to the laundromat yet to get that smell out. It was his hope that no one would notice, but if they did, he supposed that it wouldn’t change anything.

Behind him, the eyes of the other detectives slid in through the blinds shuttered glass of the office windows, he could feel them crawling over his profile like cockroaches. Rust knows his files were sent ahead of his arrival, knows he has a reputation out of Texas, knows the files are supposed to be kept confidential, but rumor gets around like a cold in a fucking kindergarten. Rust knows this, because he knew about one Martin Eric Hart through hearsay alone: great detective, great catch rate, all around great guy, Rust even knew he was blonde. Real Captain America type, and Quesada wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. Rust wasn’t worried about whether or not they’d get along. No point to be. Either they’d work well together, or Martin Hart wouldn’t like him, or he’d hate Martin Hart instead and tolerate it. He figures by this point, he’s done enough in the past four years or so to tolerate just about anything. Either way, he’d already planned in advance to make some kind of effort. Maintain appearances. Keep his head down. Do The Work.

It was an odd thing to readjust himself to the sounds of Normal People Doing Normal Things. Things that he hadn’t been doing for four years and change. Change was happening now. He’d thrown away his psych pension for this and was only ¾ of the way convinced it had been the right decision. January was in three months. What if he wasn’t ready by then? What if he slipped up? Made some kind of mistake and fucked himself over? This was his last shot, the only favor he’d had left to try to undo the revolving circular fuckup he’d made of his life.

So he smiled when appropriate and nodded in all the right places when Quesada prompted him with questions. Once he was in he could relax a little, but he needed to be fucking _in_.

A ripple disrupts his quiet reflection. A murmur of sounds, of voices perking up in greeting like nestling birds when the mother comes home, the noise and disembodied voices reach a crescendo and come to a halt at the door of the very office Rust currently occupies. 

“Speak of the devil,” Quesada says, but it’s with fondness, not irritation. A warmth of tone Rust has yet to experience from anyone aside from the smiling, coffee giving desk lady. Without knocking, a blonde haired man stumbles in, mouth spreading into a gap-toothed smile that fills his whole face. Rust rises on instinct, his skin buzzing from the shift in the air, and all of a sudden it feels like there is too much light in the room.

“Rustin Cohle right? I hope the old badger here hasn’t been talking your ear off.” The man says with a sparkle in his eye, cranking Rust’s arm up and down like a water pump.

“Naw, and it’s Rust,” Rust says. Best to get names down early. “You Martin Hart?”

“Call me Marty.” Marty says, his lopsided good ol’ boy grin in place.

“Marty.” Rust says once, if only to feel how the name forms in his mouth, how easy it slips free. _Names. Gotta get em’ right. Get em’ down early._ They’re still shaking hands like they’ve known each other all their lives, but that just might be how Martin Hart shook hands with everybody.

“I’ll have your badge for a cheese grater you call me badger one more goddamn time.” Quesada says, but there’s no venom to his words and he’s half smiling. Rust smiles too because he knows that’s the polite thing to do. Everybody is just smiling all the time it seems, even in an office of fucking murder police. Imagine that.

“It’s no good for cheddar, sorry Boss, I know how much you love your tacos.” Marty says seriously, and Quesada just shakes his head. “It’s a Spanish name you fucking prick.” Somehow, the easy cursing helps Rust relax. Something about habits he’s made ingrained within him over years of hard living in harder company. It’s good. Familiar.

Things roll forward more quickly after that and Rust is shaking Ken Quesada’s hand and thanking him politely for help he hadn’t given, and is then steered out of the office and into the CID proper for the special 'Marty Hart Grand Tour.’ Rust feels more awake and aware now that he’s up and walking and he pretends to listen intently as Marty shows him his desk, the break room, warns him against the microwave that beeps loudly and for fucking ever if you don’t catch it before the timer runs up. Shows him the locker rooms, tells him that the showers are usually pretty clean, makes some joke about another detective taking a forty minute shit every other day after lunch and making the room smell like a sewer. All the while people stop and say hello, introduce themselves to Rust with the same level of interest zoo animals have with the people on the other side of the glass.

_(Nice notebook there Rust, you our new rook or the fucking taxman?)_

His skin is itching and he realizes he hasn’t touched this many people in years. The other detectives laugh and joke with Marty like he’s a bonafide celebrity, and all of this has got Rust figuring that Martin “call me marty” Hart is the closest thing to a ray of sunshine this dreary little building has- 

-and that’s when it starts to happen: The fluorescent tubes lining the lumpy, beige ceiling tiles seem to get brighter and brighter with each step he takes. Soon he’s squinting against a white light so powerful it hurts his eyes and coats his tongue in metal and he hasn’t had one this bad in over a month now, and he fixes his eyes on the floor to avoid that bright all encompassing light and still try to look as though there’s nothing wrong, and-

“Still with me there Tex?” Marty asks, still fucking with the stubborn lock on what is supposed to be Rust’s new locker.

Rust nods, “Yeah,” he says, ignoring the nickname.

Yeah.

He thinks of his cool, white apartment then, what Marty might think of its emptiness, already calls him Marty in his head now, and Rust tries to assure himself that Marty might never come by, they’ll probably never get that close, because that’s just how things usually are, but then again he might. It’s the possibility that makes him feel something new and twisting moving through his gut and chest like a coiling snake. That combination of worry, and something that could be mistaken for hope. 

He thinks about four days ago when he’d nearly broken down in the school supply section of the Staples and had to hide in the empty bathroom like a teenage girl at her prom until he could center himself and get back under control again, and wonders if he’s ready to handle this, but Marty grins good-naturedly at him and there’s nothing fake or forced about it. Marty tells him about this sandwich place down the street that makes roast beef sandwiches as big as your forearm, declares they’re going there for lunch (Marty’s treat) and Rust feels visible, feels welcome, for the first time in what feels like the long, bright dark of an age.

 


End file.
